World in Conflict
If you want to experience a war and all you have is a PC, you have to try World in Conflict, it’s as close to a real full scale war as you’re going to get from behind a monitor screen. Sierra and Massive Entertainment really went out of their way to create the best tactical simulation ever, and as far as I’m concerned they’ve succeeded wonderfully.
World in Conflict takes place at the beginning of the 1980’s when the Cold War was suppose to end. Only it didn’t, instead of the fall of the
You play as a lieutenant Parker, but you never get to see his face, makes you feel like it’s really you, you’ll be given command of a handful of troops and sent in to vanquish the massive communist army. But don’t worry, it’s not as hard as it sounds, you’ll find the game offers many advantages, you just need to know when and how to use them.
Apart from the very interesting storyline, the game manages to draw you in using great voice acting (the narrator is Alec Baldwin and he fits like a glove), some incredibly looking cutscenes that give it a Hollywood feel, and graphic-novel-like drawings depicting game characters in very emotional instances, like talking to their loved ones, struggling to get through the thick army bureaucracy in order to get paid, and other such situations that make you feel like you’re really a part of this war.
You can’t really say World in Conflict is a classic RTS, it lacks the unit building and resource gathering aspects, which makes it more of a tactical war simulator. The battle system is kind of like this: you’re given a number of reinforcement points, which you use to parachute units to the battle field. Heavy units cost more points, but that’s not really a reason to start bringing in only the big guns, because that’s not the way this game works. All units have their weak points. Heavy tanks are vulnerable to air units, while light helicopters have great scouting abilities but are easy to destroy by almost every unit, medium helicopters can take out other airborne units with air-to air rockets, while the heavy helicopters can easily take out any armored vehicle but are vulnerable to medium helicopter attacks. Infantry is good against other infantry and air units but can’t really hurt tanks and the list goes on. This balanced battle system forces the player to think strategically, not letting him rely on a single unit type to win a battle. The reinforcement points are limited, allowing you to have only a handful of troops, which you have to conserve, but they start regenerating slowly as soon as you start losing men. The faster your troops are destroyed the faster your reinforcement points regenerate. Of course that’s no reason to send your men to certain death, because the time spent to parachute in new units can be spent by the enemy to occupy your positions and win the battle. But the fact that you’re battle units are never truly lost, gives the game a “anything can happen” feeling. One minute you’re troops are annihilated and the next you’re conquering the enemy’s fortified positions.
Massive Entertainment also produced a game called Ground Control, a masterpiece of the RTS genre in my opinion, and World in Conflict really borrows a lot of that game’s key features, like the key positions you have to conquer and hold by any means necessary, the lack of unit building and resource gathering, the reinforcement points system and many others. I just replayed Ground Control 2 a while ago and was thinking that another sequel would be nice…well this is even better.
Another strongpoint of the game is the Tactical Aid feature. For your actions on the battlefield( taking and defending key locations, destroying enemies, transporting troops, etc.) you are rewarded with tactical aid points, which you can use to call a vast array of support weapons to wreak havoc through the enemy ranks. Air-strikes, napalm, smart bombs, anti aircraft fire, artillery barrages, and the dreaded nuclear strike, with its realistic mushroom cloud and static interference sound, are just some of the weapons at your disposal. The best part is they look amazing and they actually help a lot. Some missions( especially the last one) require you to use these support weapons very precisely in order to prevail. There’s nothing like launching an artillery barrage and watching it come down like a meteor shower and pounding the enemy into oblivion.
The single player campaign has 14 missions, very few if you ask me, but they all offer diversity, none o f them are linear, requiring you to accomplish many types of objectives. The campaign takes you through
Now for the multiplayer campaign, it’s like the icing on the cake, allowing up to eight players to go nuclear on each other on the same map, no down time, only destructive non-stop action. You’re going to love it. If you have any doubts, put them aside, call your friends and go to war as soon as possible.
There are so many other things to say about World in Conflict, but I’m going to let you discover them on your own, this is definitely an instant classic, and you don’t want to miss it, if you’re a strategy fan or not.
